Page 49 of Blood Magic

Chapter Nineteen

I woke up after noon the next day, and the first thing on my mind was the missing spirit jar. Both Remy and Bastien would have had the opportunity, and I was betting neither one of them would admit to it when I asked them.

I wouldn’t be able to accuse Bastien until the sun went down, but I got Remy right away. “Did you take my demon?” I asked, calmly.

He didn’t even hesitate. “Yeah, I’ve got him.”

“Why?”

“Just a little insurance, I guess.”

“You think you can control me by holding the threat of that demon over my head?” I laughed, no longer calm. “You’re an asshole.”

“Never said I wasn’t.”

I didn’t tell him that the longer the demon was trapped in the jar, the weaker he would become. In a few weeks, if Remy took out the stopper and freed him, the demon would be as ineffectual as he should have been from the beginning. He wouldn’t be powerful enough to hurt anyone. Not after being in a spelled spirit jar.

“I don’t plan on using him to control you. I like collecting things that might be of some use to me in the future.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I do that, too. But I wouldn’t steal from you to add to my collection. I admired you, Remy, but you’re just a common thug. Stay away from me.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised. Remy Simon would do whatever it took to see to his own needs. He wasn’t an ethical man and he certainly wasn’t a nice one. He was a killer.

“You’re just like me, Kait.”

“No. I’m not like you. You have no honor.” I disconnected the call, relieved that at least he hadn’t stolen my demon blade—though if he’d known how important it was and that it had belonged to the very demon he now held, chances were he’d have tried. And I would have gone after him for that. I couldn’t be too upset about it. I’d known what Remy Simon was.

It did worry me that he was involved in my case. Which reminded me. I called the number Bastien had given me, and it went straight to voicemail. I left a message without saying too much—after all, I had no idea who would end up with it—and then hung up without much hope that I’d get a return call.

Remy wanted to find the vampires as they slept and burn them all. That would certainly cut out the problem. But I couldn’t do that. I greatly disliked the vampires, true enough, and I was sure they felt the same about wolves, but neither side sneak attacked and killed the other simply because they existed.

Honor.

It also pissed me off that Remy, a human, was fucking with supernaturals. Who the hell did he think he was? I felt the same about supernaturals messing with humans. It just wasn’t right.

I called my mother as I was eating breakfast. “Hey, mom.”

“Hi, honey. Lucy told me you’d be fine, which is why I didn’t come to the city. I knew she wouldn’t lie to me.”

“How are you and your girls?” I asked her. “Everybody good?”

“We are all perfect. You worry about you. And be more careful, Kaity.”

“I will. Bye, Mom.”

“Peace out.”

I shook my head and tossed Ash a bite of bacon. “My mother is one strange lady,” I told the dog, but he didn’t care. He just wanted more bacon. “You want butt scritchings? Yes you do. Yes you do!”

Someone knocked at the door and Ash trotted after me as I went to see who was paying me a visit. Jared, probably, since he hadn’t had a chance to yell at me for last night’s fiasco yet.

But it wasn’t Jared.

Three people stood outside my door—two women and one man, all human, as far as I could tell. They had the look of vampires, but that would have been impossible. It was the middle of the day.

“Kait Silver?” one of the women asked. She was maybe fifty, wearing a suit, had her hair in a tight ponytail, and was a little aggressive as she leaned toward me, getting in my space.

I didn’t back up. “Yes, ma’am. How can I help you?”